


A Whisper and A Clamor

by slash4femme



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-25
Updated: 2011-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-09 22:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slash4femme/pseuds/slash4femme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After almost a year it's become normal to sit down to dinner with Spock and that worries McCoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Whisper and A Clamor

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://darlapr0duction.livejournal.com/profile)[**darlapr0duction**](http://darlapr0duction.livejournal.com/) for [](http://help-japan.livejournal.com/profile)[**help_japan**](http://help-japan.livejournal.com/). This ended up being nothing like your prompt, sorry hon. I hope you like it anyway. Very kindly beta'd by the wonderful [](http://lesliecrusher.livejournal.com/profile)[**lesliecrusher**](http://lesliecrusher.livejournal.com/) all mistakes are therefore mine and mine alone.

I.

When the weather starts showing signs of spring McCoy plants tomatoes, peppers, and several kinds of herbs in the clay pots he finds in the basement. He also does his best to fix the upstairs window, and Spock sweeps the entire house from top to bottom and washes all the rugs and curtains. They don’t talk about these preparations because that would be admitting that they both think they will be here through the summer. Unsurprisingly McCoy is the first to break this game of silence.

“We should think about maybe planting a garden.” He tells Spock one night at the dinner table.

Spock looks up at him and away from the greens he’s been mechanically eating, he considers for a moment. “I have no knowledge of gardening apart from watching my mother tend to some plants she kept in pots when I was young.” He looks back done at his plate, growing suddenly pensive; but McCoy notes his hands don’t have the tell-tail tremor they used to when Spock spoke of his mother.

“My Gran used to garden.” McCoy offers up, “I was never much good at it myself but then there was no need. We could just replicate anything we wanted in the house if we couldn’t be bothered to buy it.”

“With the price of food here and the lack of a replicator it seems logical that we should try growing something.” Spock finishes chewing thoughtfully, “besides it will utilize the land attached to this house.”

“Yard.” McCoy corrects him, “it’s called a back and front yard.”

Spock only raises an eyebrow at him, “Indeed.”

McCoy fights back a smile. This is almost normal, he thinks, the two of them sitting together, discussing plans for the future over a meal. The smile dies and McCoy gets up and takes his plate to the sink and begins to do the dinner dishes.

Later in his bedroom, McCoy lies in bed staring at the ceiling listening to the old house creak and grown and make all the noises he’s gotten used to hearing at night. As always he thinks about the last time he’d seen Kirk. It was so stupid, so idiotic that this would happen. The moral of which was never stand in front of some piece of alien technology while James T. Kirk wrestled a giant lizard around the room instead of stunning it like a normal person. Because McCoy should have really known that at some point in the fight the machine would have been triggered while he and Spock were standing in front of it.

Next thing they knew Spock and McCoy had been standing on what looked like a country road from one of the classic movies McCoy’s Gran had liked. There is a good reason for that they would find. They were on Earth, back in time, before interplanetary space travel, before the Third World War even.

They’d spent the first month camped out in a motel while McCoy cooked part time at the local diner and Spock tried to figure out some way to get them home. By the second month, Freddy, the owner of the diner took pity on McCoy and hooked him up with a friend of a friend who’d just moved and was looking for someone to rent his old house.

“Just so it doesn’t sit vacant before we can put it on the market,” the college professor who owned the house had told them.

The house was old, almost impossible to heat above fifty when it was cold out and the porch door had a tendency to bang so hard it tore straight off its hinges. On the other hand the rent was cheap, the landlord friendly, and they were allowed to use any furniture still left in the house. Most of which was very old and falling apart but McCoy didn’t care, it was better than the motel.

It snowed the third month they were there. They piled blankets on their beds and McCoy would huddle under the covers at night listening to the wind and think about Kirk. If it had been Kirk he’d been stranded with, they could have shared a bed if only for the extra body heat. Kirk would make a sexual joke and curl up along the line of McCoy’s body. The other man would stroke his arm in that way Kirk had of being a little too friendly and yet still managing not to make McCoy feel uncomfortable about it. They’d talk about the ship and whether Scotty and Spock were taking proper care of her, and Kirk would sigh wistfully. McCoy would snort and roll his eyes before turning to puts his arms around the other man and tell him it would be alright and they’d get back soon.

Kirk’s not there though, he could be dead for all McCoy knows. Instead McCoy stuck so far back in Earth’s past he’s not sure he’d be able to find his way around a hospital much less practice in one. He’s stuck here with Spock, who he’s barely been civil with since they met; who wouldn’t give him the time of day back on the Enterprise unless Kirk was in the room and made it an order. McCoy curls into himself and doesn’t think about Kirk being dead, doesn’t think about how after all this time the Enterprise has surely given them up for dead . He doesn’t think about spending the rest of his life here with Spock. He tries very hard not to hate Spock, and almost succeeds.

They learn how much they can shovel outside before Spock turns a nasty green and needs to go back inside and sit huddled up with some tea. The snow falls heavily for what feels like forever. For three months they get heavy snow fall, and McCoy takes the bus back and forth to the diner and Spock gets a job working at some office building mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms. Between the two of them they are bringing in enough money to keep their house heated and food on the table.

Cooking on a stove that has an actual flame is a hair-raising experience for the both of them. McCoy had just gotten used to the huge griddle-like surface they have him cook on at the diner, and isn’t sure what to make of the stove in the house. They eat a lot of burnt food for a while. Spock can make a few things, usually involving raw vegetables, very well. McCoy can make even more things even better. After a long a bitter fight they finally decide not to cook meat in the house. At least Spock decides and McCoy finally caves in, if for no reason other than that meat is extremely expensive here. He also vaguely remembers reading a book about primitive slaughtering methods that had put him off meat for months afterwards and he doesn’t feel like taking the chance that the time they are now living in was one of the ones included in the book.

“For God’s sake remember your scarf!” McCoy bellows out of the kitchen one morning while Spock is getting ready for work and McCoy is finishing up the breakfast dishes.

Sitting in the main room, pulling on his boots Spock gives the doctor a long look as if to say ‘of course’ grabs the said scarf and heads outside to wait for the bus. McCoy looks out of the kitchen window across their snow covered lawn and wonders when living with Spock had started to feel so normal.

They don’t talk about the Enterprise or her crew, they talk about their jobs, about cooking and fixing up the house, or who’s going to do the shopping. The snow starts to melt eventually and McCoy ventured down into the cobweb filled basement to search for seeds and flower pots.

They dig out some shovels from the basement as soon as the ground thaws, and starting digging their garden. The ground is rocky and inhospitable but they keep at it anyway. McCoy goes back in several hours after they’ve started to get them both some water. When he comes back out he is struck by the image of Spock, dressed in jeans and a long sleeve dark blue shirt, on his knees on the ground intent on picking out stones from their first dug bed.

“Here.” McCoy thrusts the glass of water at the other man and Spock looks up at him, “you need to keep hydrated.” McCoy says unnecessarily and tries not to stare at how long and dark Spock’s eyelashes are or how a little bit of dirt clings to his left cheek.

Spock wipes his face with his wrist and takes the glass of water, drinking deeply. McCoy gets side tracked by Spock’s long fingers around the drinking glass, and the way his throat moves as he swallows. When he becomes aware that he’s been staring Spock is looking at him with one eyebrow raised. “Doctor?”

McCoy looks away and drinks his own water without answering.

That night lying in bed, McCoy isn’t surprised that he’s thinking of Spock’s elegant hands and long lashes against pale cheeks when his own hands slips below the waistband of his pajama pants. He doesn’t like it but it doesn’t surprise him in the least.

“I believe I was asked out on a date today.” Spock informs him at dinner the next day, and McCoy tries hard to keep from stiffing at the news.

“Oh?”

“A coworker of mine inquired if I wish to have dinner with her.” Spock explained, calm as always, “I declined of course.”

Of course McCoy thinks, stomach knotting unpleasantly, _after all he has Uhura waiting for him back on the Enterprise_. It was no secret after all that the two had been involved and monogamous since they’d started serving together. McCoy had tried hard to be happy for them, because he really liked Uhura, thought of her as a capable officer and brilliant linguist. She was probably good for Spock too, probably knew how to handle him when he got that far away, shocked, unhappy look.

Spock is giving him a strange look and McCoy forces his attention back on to his food. “You must miss her.” He forces the words out and Spock’s gaze drops to his own plate and he seems pensive for a long moment before tilting his head a little to the side.

“To miss someone when it is impossible to see them is not logical.” Spock informs him and there is a long tense silence between them where McCoy can feel his temper flair against already frayed nerves. “However, I do sometimes wish to speak with Lieutenant Uhura although she is not here.” Spock quietly amends then looks up at McCoy meeting his eyes with his own wide-dark ones. He tilts his head to the side a little again. “And you must miss the Captain.”

Now it’s McCoy’s gaze that drops and he sighs, “Yeah,” he bites his lip and tries hard not to think about Kirk, not to think about how much he wants to touch Spock in that moment, even if it’s to just clasp his hand. “Yes I do.”

They don’t talk much for the rest of the meal.

One of the few good things McCoy has found about being trapped in the past is that he can have a water shower whenever he wants one. It’s a luxury he takes full advantage of whenever he can. He’s making his way from the bathroom to his bedroom, a towel around his hips, and he notices Spock’s door is open. It’s unusual enough to catch his interest and he stops, watching Spock. The other man is curled up on his bed, knees drawn up almost to his chin and he’s reading an actual paper book, seemingly engrossed in it. Spock bites a little at his bottom lip as he reads an unconsciously human gesture that makes McCoy ache all over. Spock looks up suddenly meeting McCoy’s eyes and he doesn’t know what the other man sees there but Spock’s eyes widen as if with surprise. McCoy doesn’t wait to see what comes next before making a head long dash for his bedroom.

The next day he’s made top cook at the diner and the other three members of the small restaurant’s staff throw him a party after hours using some of the leftover food. He appreciates the gesture and appreciates more, a reason not to go home just yet. He walks to the small library afterwards and spends some time looking at books that he doesn’t understand the cultural context to enough to really get. It bothers him more then he’d like to admit that he can’t practice medicine here, since he has no way to prove he has any of the training. He’s used to feeling pretty useless and like a failure in lots of aspects of his life, his inability to have a stable relationship being only one of them, but he’s always been a good doctor, always. Except not here, not now.  
He intends to grab something quick to eat and then lock himself in his room when he gets back to the house, but Spock ambushes him as soon has he get there.

“Doctor McCoy.” Spock calls him to sitting calmly in their small living room. “We must talk.”

McCoy really wants to tell Spock to fuck off but knows from experience that it wouldn’t work anyway. So he goes into the living room and sits stiffly on one of their ugly easy chairs, studiously not looking at Spock, or the way his dark hair touches and curves around his ears. It needs to be cut, McCoy thinks, and then curses at himself for noticing at all.

“Ok. Shoot.”

Spock raises an eyebrow at that but passes up the chance to pretend he doesn’t know what McCoy means just so they can fight about it. “As I am sure you are aware, doctor, we have been here for close to one Earth year.” Spock informs him and McCoy’s hands tighten into fists, “Although I have spent much time and energy trying to find a way back to our own time and space, I have not been able to do this, mostly due to my limited resources and the fact that I am working alone.” Spock steeples his fingers together a sign McCoy has noticed means he is feeling slightly pensive, “ This is the case because I do not have the appropriate qualifications to access the kind of research information I will need here in this time, and you do not possess the necessary qualifications to practice medicine here as well.”

“Yes,” McCoy snaps “I know of all this. What are you getting at here Spock?”

“From my estimations of the situation, it appears that we will be here for quite some time.” Spock doesn’t so much as blink as he says what McCoy’s been secretly dreading, “in which case it would be in both of our best interests to acquire the required qualifications to do our jobs.”

Spock unfolds finally and rummages around in the bag he uses for work and puts several brightly colored, folded pieces of paper on the coffee table in front of him. “I have used the primitive computer at the library while on my lunch break to do some research into the educational opportunities available to us here.” He informs the doctor.

McCoy stares at the papers and then stares at Spock and tries to wrap his mind around the fact that Spock is asking-no, telling him to go to medical school again. He wonders if Spock is fully aware of what goes into being a medical student and thus understands why no one would ever want to do that to themselves twice.  
He thinks of them continuing to live in this house, while he works as a cook at the local diner with no way back to the Enterprise and no way for him ever to practice medicine again. His chest constricts so hard at the idea that for several long seconds he can’t breathe.

“Ok.” He says finally, meeting Spock’s eyes again, “What are our options?”

Not many, it turns out because neither of them can prove citizenship or that they have any sort of education. They pool their resources and buy a primitive computer off of one of McCoy’s coworkers, then Spock takes a few days off of work and hacks into the government’s database.

“It was a bit too easy.” Spock almost looks concerned as he cuts some peppers into strips to go with their dinner. “Obviously national security at this time is not what it should be.”

“Or they’re just not expecting to be hacked by an alien from the future.” McCoy points out, “I bet you could hack into the Federation’s computer system in our time and access classified material if you really wanted to. The technology and programs they have now don’t stand a chance.”

Spock gives him a look that could almost be a pissed off frown, and McCoy grins at the soup pot on the stove and then looks back at Spock. The other man is wearing a sweatshirt about three sizes too big for him and it keeps falling over his hands as he wields the knife causing Spock to have to stop and push them back up. McCoy’s never thought ‘cute’ was a word that would ever be used to describe a Vulcan but at that moment it describes Spock perfectly. He feels his face heat and has to look away again. When McCoy looks up again Spock is watching him but McCoy can’t read the look on the other man’s face so he concentrates on the food instead.  
McCoy is in the garden weeding when the phone rings causing him to rush inside to answer it.

“Bones!?”

McCoy just stands there dumbly in the kitchen with dirt smeared across his jeans and t-shirt listening to Kirk’s voice on the other end of the phone.

“Jim?” His voice cracks a little and he clears his throat “Are you here?”

“No. I’m on the Enterprise, Bones, Scotty’s figured out a way to patch us through. I wanted to tell you and Spock to sit tight we’re going to get you soon. Actually, you seem to be in a building it would be easier if you weren’t.”

“I can go outside.” McCoy assures him, it feels like he’s in some kind of dream, like parts of him have gone numb. He vaguely thinks he must be in shock.

“That would be great.” Kirk tells him, “go get Spock, we’ll have you back in a sec.”

McCoy drops the phone and dashes upstairs. “Spock!”

Spock looks up from his desk as McCoy bursts into the other man’s bedroom, “Doctor?”

“We need to go outside, into the backyard now. Jim just called on the phone. They’re bringing us back!”  
Both of Spock’s eyebrows go up. “Are you sure it was the Captain, Doctor?”

“Of course I am,” McCoy tells him impatiently grabbing his arms and half hauling Spock up. “We have to go outside, damn it!”

“Very well.” Spock leads the way down the hall, downstairs, and out into the back yard. They stand together next to a crabapple tree and nothing happens. McCoy begins to get a tight, sick feeling in his stomach. What if he’s been wrong, what if something had happened on the Enterprise or Scotty couldn’t get them back after all, or he is simply going crazy trapped here. Minutes tick by, while McCoy fidgets and Spock leans against the trunk of the tree, eyes closed, hands folded appearing to meditate.

Minutes drag into ten and then fifteen and finally twenty and McCoy finally clears his throat. Spock looks at him and McCoy can feel his own shoulders hunch and his hands ball into fists.

“This is ridiculous. I’m going back inside to make dinner.” He closes his eyes briefly and fights down the almost crushing disappointment. Then turns and head back inside.

Spock follows him back in, seemingly lost in thought, as McCoy bangs around the kitchen throwing them together a quick dinner of pasta. Spock is quiet and thoughtful the entire meal and McCoy is grateful. He doesn’t think he can talk about much of anything at the moment.

Over the next few days McCoy hates himself for getting his hopes up, for every morning waking up and thinking maybe today would be the day that they’d go back. He’d thought he’d lain to rest those kinds of hopes a year ago but now he can’t help keep his heart from pounding every time the phone rings.

The week after Kirk had called on the phone, their clothes dryer breaks. McCoy comes home from work to find it emitting a cloud of dark smoke and he unplugs the thing and makes sure the clothes inside are alright. The next day Spock strings a clothes line up outside, and over the next couple days they develop a routine. Spock hangs the clothes up in the morning and McCoy brings them in and folds them when he gets home.

Which is why, on that day, Spock is hanging up the clothes while McCoy shaves for work. It’s a Wednesday like every other. So when McCoy glances out the window the only thing he’s thinking about is whether or not he should ask Spock to get eggs on his way home from work or pick them up himself. Outside, Spock is gone. The basket of wet clothes sits quietly by the clothes line but Spock is nowhere to be seen. McCoy goes to the window peering out to make sure the other man hasn’t wandered off to another part of the yard. Then everything goes fuzzy.

The next moment, he’s stood looking at a rather amused Jim T. Kirk. Spock is standing next to him looking completely out of place in the transporter room of the Enterprise in flip-flop sandals, tight low cut jeans, a t-shirt and a floppy hat. McCoy knows he must look equally comical standing there staring like an idiot barefoot, in jeans, and an undershirt with shaving cream still on his face.

Luckily Kirk chooses not to comment and only grins at both of them. “Welcome back, guys.”

 

II.

McCoy sits on the couch in his quarters trying to relax. He’d blacked out the port window which makes his quarters feel claustrophobically small and shut in. He’s found however that when the port window is clear so he can see space outside it makes him feel dizzy and nauseous. It’s like when he first came to serve on a starship. It makes him feel totally ill-suited for life in space.

McCoy sighs and rubs his hands across his face, fighting down the panic that’s been at the edges of his senses since getting back on the ship. During the debriefing, he and Spock had learned that while they had been stuck on Earth of the past for over a year, for the crew of the Enterprise they’d only been gone for two days. So while the crew treats him like he hadn’t been gone McCoy feels skittish and out of place all over again. Sickbay seems like someplace alien where he doesn’t really belong. While his quarters make him feel like he’s trapped in a small metal box.

He stands and moves across the room and he really wants to get himself a drink but alcohol and stress don’t mix very well. He’d done enough of that to himself after the divorce. He paces back and forth across the room instead. He considers going to find Kirk but their conversations about his time away haven’t been very helpful. The other man had tried to be sympathetic but, to Kirk, McCoy had only been gone two days and he couldn’t really understand what the other man was going through.

McCoy rubs his hands across his face and considers going to talk to the only person on the entire ship he’s sure would understand, then shakes himself. He can’t go to Spock, and even if he did what would he say? Spock is probably fine, probably adjusting nicely now that he’s back as second in command with Uhura back in his life again. What if McCoy did go to Spock and ended up saying the wrong thing, giving too much away?

He takes a sleep inducing hypo-spray instead.

He wakes out of a hazy, drug induced sleep a little while later by his door continuously chiming. He swears softly letting out of bed and pulling on his pants and uniform shirt as he goes. He keys open the door and then stands there, a little stupidly, staring at Spock.

“May I enter doctor?”

Spock is obviously off duty since he is dressed in a stiffly cut black suit McCoy recognizes as being a style favored by Vulcans of Spock’s age these days. McCoy nods and stands back, Spock moves into the doctor’s quarters and, after hesitating briefly, settles on the couch.

“The Captain asked me to come and speak with you.” Spock informs him, “he is concerned by the difficulty you seem to be having adjusting to life back on the ship.”

McCoy groans at this and covers his face with his hand while silently cursing Kirk.

“I am fine Spock.” He tells the other man before marching over to the replicator and replicating himself some tea. He purposefully doesn’t offer Spock any, hoping this will encourage him to leave faster. Everything his Gran had ever taught him cries out at this blatant disregard for a guest but McCoy really isn’t in the mood to be having this conversation with Spock of all people.

“According to my observations Doctor,” Spock informs him lacing his fingers together in his lap, “I do not find your statement to be completely accurate.”

McCoy rolls his eyes at that and takes a sip of his tea. “I don’t care what you observations tell you Spock, I’m just-” He rubs his face with one hand, “I’m just tired.”

“We were gone a very long time Doctor.” Spock tells him, managing not to sound condescending as much as reflective, “Just the two of us, alone, in a completely different time and place. It is bound to change the relationships both between ourselves, and with the crew.”

There is a long pause, far too pregnant with things McCoy has spent the last year not saying. Spock looks to the floor, hands folded neatly in his lap. The sleeves of his suit are very intricate, McCoy notices, folded in geometric ways seeming to center on triangular shapes and made out of far more layers then he feels is strictly logical.

“I want to inform you that Lieutenant Uhura and I are no longer in a romantic relationship and that we have not been in one since well before our trip back in time.” Spock seems to straighten up more if that’s even possible, looking straight ahead, looking, for lack of better word, very prim. “And that you should allow the Captain to assist you with your emotional distress.”

“Oh, Jim.” McCoy waves his hands making a small noise. He carefully chooses not to respond to the information about Spock and Uhura leaving that for a safer time when he can process it in private. “I’ve talked to Jim and he’s done the whole best friend thing but he just doesn’t get it.” He looks up to find Spock staring at him, his expression unreadable. McCoy frowns “What’s this all about, Spock?”

Spock’s gaze lowers and McCoy watches as Spock seems to struggle with what to say next. His expression becomes almost pensive and his hands tighten imperceptibly. “I have been made to understand,” Spock seems to test each word before he says it, “that human’s required their partners to provide support for them emotionally, that it is a vital aspect to having a healthy relationship with a human.”

McCoy stares at Spock for a long moment and Spock studiously avoids meeting his eyes. McCoy finally sets his cup of tea aside and comes to sit next to the other man on the couch. “Spock.” McCoy says softly, clenching his hands into fists so that he does not touch the other man, “Jim and I are not in a relationship. We have never been in a relationship.” Spock is openly staring at him now and it takes every ounce of will power for McCoy not to either bolt from the room or reach out and take Spock’s hand. “Even if we were,” McCoy says hoping to hell he’s doing the right thing for both of them, “he’s not here assisting me with my emotional distress, you are.”

Spock takes a long breath at that. “Doctor would you eat dinner with me?” He asks, and for the first time since they’ve come back from the past, McCoy feels himself smile.

It turns out Spock believes in taking it slow. They eat dinner together the next night and the night after that and the night after that. Spock brings tea to McCoy while he’s working late in the lab twice and calls him down to one of the observation decks one evening just to show him what Spock calls a ‘particularly rare and fascinating stellar anomaly.’

McCoy thinks as he stands next to Spock on the observation deck watching the other man’s face tilted towards the stars, hands loosely clasped that if Spock were human he’d probably be comparing McCoy to the space anomaly right about now. He reaches out and clasps his hand loosely with Spock’s and the other man seems to startle slightly but doesn’t pull away. He watches the space until the Enterprise has passed by the star show. Then he watches Spock, noting the soft lines of Spock’s shoulder and back, the gentle curve of his jaw. When Spock turns to him, lips slightly parted to speak, McCoy leans forward and kisses him. Spock seems almost surprised by that too, but again he doesn’t pull away, only meets McCoy with a gentle press of lips against lips. McCoy’s hands go to gently circle Spock’s waist while Spock’s hands cup McCoy’s jaw. When Spock’s lips soften slightly against McCoy’s, McCoy presses gently with his tongue until Spock opens his mouth. Their tongues flick and rub together and Spock’s hands search down McCoy’s body to find McCoy’s hands and rub their fingers together, as well. McCoy sighs softly against Spock’s mouth eyes closing, and Spock pets across the backs of McCoy’s hands, entwines their fingers together where they rest on Spock’s own hips. When they pull apart to breathe Spock reaches up and touches McCoy’s lips with the tips of his fingers, feather light, in a way that makes McCoy want to kiss the other man all over his body. McCoy takes a breath and then pulls Spock into a hug. They hold each other for a long moment before Spock pulls away.

“It is late, Doctor, I believe I will return to my quarters.” Spock brushes one hand down the front of his uniform shirt in a gesture that would have seemed nervous on anyone else.

McCoy shakes his head, “Call me Leonard, Spock, just Leonard.”

“Very well,” Spock turns towards the door “When we are off duty, I will call you Leonard.”

McCoy reaches out and grabs Spock’s arm before the other man can make it to the exit. He leans forward and kisses Spock lightly on the cheek, “Good night, Spock, sleep well.”

“You too . . .Leonard”

McCoy’s mind flashes for a moment to going back to his closed-in little room and fighting with himself and the longing to simply be on solid ground again. At the door Spock hesitates for a moment watching McCoy, seeming to have some kind of internal struggle. Finally he turns back to face the other man, clasping his hands together in front of him.

“On second thought, Leonard, I would not object to you accompanying me to my quarters and, perhaps, spending the night there.”

McCoy looks up at Spock in surprise and then thinks about going to his own quarters alone as opposed to having Spock there with him, a warm solid line against his body anchoring him.

“I think I’d like that Spock.” He hesitates for a moment himself, then reaches out for Spock’s hand, “Thank you for offering.”

Spock fixes him for a moment with one of those looks McCoy is just now starting to understand “There is no need to thank me.” He tells McCoy firmly and then leads the way.


End file.
